Neighbourhood where my roots lie.

Photographs from around my parents’ home in Japan, tracing the quiet distance between where I live now and where I come from.

I’m not sure I can call it Yokohama, not quite. But that is where my parents’ home is. The Sakai River runs along the line between Fujisawa and Yokohama, and there are still fields left around it. Winter mornings can be sharply cold, yet people still go out early for a walk. They move quietly, breathing pale air. You hear birds, and now and then you sense something else, an animal passing somewhere out of sight. Where the city’s outline starts to fray, nature has not been pushed out completely. It is still there, as if it has simply been left in place.

I moved to the UK more than thirty years ago. Even so, the fact that there is still a home in Japan I can return to feels strangely fortunate when I stop and think about it. I take photographs of the nearby streets and riverbanks, and I often find myself thinking the same thing. Each time I press the shutter, it feels as if I am measuring the distance again, the distance between the life I have made far away and the things that have remained where they always were, just a little.